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Five career priorities

Every career choice we make comes back to how we solve for these. We can make career decisions easier for ourselves by keeping four things in mind.

First, we ought to know that it gets harder to change multiple priorities. If you are trying to change just a role or team within your company, that is likely among the easier things to do. It is harder to change companies, industries, locations. And, of course, it is harder to change two or three things at a time. That doesn’t mean it can’t be done. It is just very hard. Location can be particularly hard for those who weren’t born with American or European passports. And, for most people, graduate school tends to a way to enable such change.

Second, every time you make a move, it helps to create a stack rank of these priorities. What are you trying to achieve? And, at what cost? It is rare you are going to end up with the perfect combination. You have to know what you are willing to trade off. Also, I’ve noticed that when most folks make career decisions, they focus on points 1-4. That is natural. There is just one problem – the people we surround ourselves with have a massive impact on our daily well-being. So, beware ignoring the team/people priority.

Third, the first two priorities are the hardest to solve for. So, if we can find a way to resolve this or simply eliminate them, it’ll ease any transition. For example, if you are focused on one industry, you can now focus on four priorities instead of five.

Finally, the best way to think about career moves is to layer a longer term / directional perspective. Instead of attempting to change multiple priorities today, look to work on changing one or two at a time. For example, you can make a move across industries within the same role as a starting point. Then, attempt to change role and so on.

As a bonus point, it is easy to second guess your past career decisions when you try to make changes. It is easy to look around and feel “behind.” But, it is worth reminding ourselves that we’ve gotten here by doing the best we could with what we knew.